In a piece about PRC President Xi Jinping telling President Donald Trump that the former wants a peaceful resolution to the problem of northern Korea, The Wall Street Journal‘s Te-Ping Chen quoted John Delury, an Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul:

Beijing is in somewhat of a new dilemma here, where they’re trying to restrain both Trump and Kim Jong Un[.]

This is inaccurate on a couple of counts.  On the one hand, Xi is in no position to presume to restrain Trump, what with his own naked aggressions in the East and South China Seas, nor is he in a position to restrain when he has steadfastly refused to take meaningful steps to restrain Baby Kim, and his father Kim the Younger before him.

On the other hand, “restraint,” which is to say obviating the necessity of American unilateral action vis-à-vis northern Korea and its race for deliverable nuclear warheads, could readily be achieved were Xi to act on his words and positively and manifestly restrain Baby Kim: stop his nuclear weapons development and bring about the dismantling of his nuclear weapons facilities.